by Sidney Offit
The Adventures of Homer Fink
Sidney Offit
To the memory of Arnold Ortman, teacher, coach and friend of the students of the former Lafayette Junior High School, Baltimore, Maryland … And …
To the school boys and girls of Public School 6, Manhattan, who first encouraged the tales of Homer Fink.
1
It started when the loud-speaker conked out.
I dont suppose it would have been important if any other boy or girl at Junior High School 79 had been speaking. Most kids around our age aren’t Einsteins, but they can figure out that if you are speaking to eight hundred students and the teachers, and the loud-speaker dies, the best thing to do is close your mouth and wait. But it wasn’t any other student. It was my friend, Homer Fink. And Homer is an Einstein.
That’s what the other kids in our class call him. They call him another name too, particularly when he’s the only one in class who has the answers to the teacher’s questions.
They say it fast, three times in a row: “Fink. Fink. Fink.”
Homer usually smiles and touches his thumb and index finger like an “O” for onward.
I asked him about this once and Homer said, “Fink employed as a noun other than a proper name refers to an informer—a squealer. In the lexicon of the labor unions a fink is a strikebreaker. It may also mean one who visits a carnival not to spend but to find cause for complaint to police.” Then he paused, waiting for it to sink in, but it didn’t. When Homer talks like that I don’t even try to understand what he says. Most of the time I get the feeling that he’s remembered something from our homework that I’ve forgotten. Usually I just shrug and say, “I guess so.”
That’s what I did after he told me about “fink.”
“So you can see that the usage in this instance is irrelevant,” Homer went on. “My information was enlightening, not conspiratorial.”
Homer doesn’t talk like that to impress people. That’s the way he is. I guess he was born that way.
We have an oratory contest at school every year. The winner gets a dictionary, which isn’t much, but the teacher always tells us that the big thing is the “honor.”
By the time you reach the ninth grade you know without even going to the assembly that you’re in for “Gunga Din,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.”
Each homeroom picks its two best speakers. We knew in our class that Phillip Moore was going to make it. He’s definitely the boy you’d want on your side in war or peace or a pickup game of touch football in the yard after school.
Phillip recited “If,” a poem by Rudyard Kipling. His expression was so serious it almost made me want to cry. (Laura Epps did cry, but that doesn’t count because Laura cries at all kinds of things such as hearing about how Lou Gehrig died—and she can’t even play baseball.)
Homer was looking out the window when the teacher called on him. Homer Fink is always looking out windows or studying the floor or looking off at the sky as if he sees something there. Most of the time the teacher has to say his name two or three times to get his attention. But Miss Pierce—she’s our homeroom teacher—is very patient. She repeated, “Homer—Homer Fink. May I have your attention, Homer?”
There was a chorus of “Fink, Fink, Fink.”
This happens lots of times, which is probably just as well because if Homer really did listen and knew what was going on in class all the time he would have all the right answers and we’d hear more of the other, “Fink. Fink. Fink.” No matter what Homer says or how he explains it, the chorus makes me feel very uncomfortable.
Well, on the day of the oratory tryouts, Homer heard the class repeat his name. He turned his head slowly and blinked his eyes and said very softly, “Yes, ma’am—in the third millennium B.C., equinoxes and solstices were determined in China by means of culminating stars.”
The class cracked up. Brian Spitzer roared and banged on his desk and Trudy Deal tried so hard to control her laugh, it came out a great big raspberry—brrrrrr.
“Now … now, children.” Miss Pierce clapped her hands and nodded her head in a way she has of letting us know it’s all right to laugh a little but that it’s time to stop. “Thank you very much, Homer. It’s good of you to bring us this information about astronomy, but we were discussing the stars last Wednesday and next week when we talk about them again we’ll be looking forward to hearing what you have learned.”
Homer jumped to his feet.
“No genuine science of astronomy was founded until the Greeks translated experience into theory,” he went on. “Among the astronomers of antiquity Hipparchus and Ptolemy were the greatest.” Homer was off and running now, and there was no stopping him. He knew these things and he wanted to tell us all about them. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to Homer Fink that other kids weren’t as concerned about learning as he was. To tell the truth, I’m not interested in half the things Homer knows about. But I listen because sometimes Homer gets hot on a subject like the Second World War. I remember one afternoon he charted the battles of Coral Sea and Midway for me. Homer really had me believing he was right there with Admiral William Halsey. When Homer described how the Lexington went down, I started treading water to save my life.
But that was the story of a battle, and this time Homer was going on about charting the path of Jupiter.
“We know that the orbital period of Jupiter is nearly twelve years,” said Homer and he started to the blackboard.
He would have made it too and gone on drawing the pictures if he hadn’t tripped on his shoelace. Homer may know all about the stars and the battles of World War II but he never did learn how to make a bowknot.
Phillip Moore caught Homer and broke his fall. Phillip Moore is in great condition.
“Take it easy, Homer—calm down,” I heard Phillip say. “You’ll break your neck.”
“Yes—well, thank you,” said Homer.
The class started to laugh again and Miss Pierce made a short speech about laughing with people and not at them. She told us that not all people were alike and while it may be true that Homer Fink was sometimes different, he had feelings like the rest of us and it was impolite to laugh at another person’s misfortune. Then she complimented Homer for knowing so much about astronomy and promised him that the next time we had a free period she would be certain to let him chart the orbit of the planet Jupiter. We all knew that wouldn’t work because one thing for sure, Homer never talked about the same thing twice. Then Miss Pierce suggested that Homer tie his shoelace.
Homer bent down and flipped the strings around. I was sitting in the middle of the room—so I bent forward to see how he was making out. With most kids who are in junior high school, you wouldn’t think twice about their tying their shoelaces. But with Homer Fink you never could tell; I had untied really fantastic knots for him lots of times. He didn’t get to tying his shoelaces often but when he did, he went at it so hard you’d think he was locking the door to Fort Knox. I followed the knot as closely as I could.
“And now, Homer, we’d like to hear your recitation,” Miss Pierce said. “Introduce yourself, identify your source, and conduct yourself exactly as you will if the class selects you to represent us in the oratory contest in front of the entire school.”
“My name is Homer Fink,” Homer began. “My homeroom is 9-1 and I am going to recite “Potpourri” from the selections of that class.”
Trudy Deal snickered and Phillip Moore glared at her from his seat. In addition to being best at everything, Phillip Moore is a good sport.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, …
There was a look
on Homer’s face that I recognized. Homer is a redhead and he really lives up to the saying that redheads are hotheads. But usually when Homer is angry he stamps and swings his arms in the air and curses in all the languages he knows. He’ll do this for a couple of minutes, and while it is going on you’d swear he’s going to burst, or break down a wall, or take off and start flying. But this wasn’t that kind of anger. It was as if Homer was boiling underneath but couldn’t explode and had to let his anger out in short insults.
The class settled down to hearing about Paul Revere again, even though Brian Spitzer had recited it earlier and Homer had called it by some other name. (Latin we guessed.)
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Paul Revere’s ride was getting bloodier, and then Homer told us:
The uniform ’e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind …
It was “Din! Din! Din!
You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?”
Homer went on like that, reciting bits of all the poems and speeches we’d heard all morning. He waved his hands and his eyes popped, and when he buried his “beautiful Annabel Lee,” he loked just like Laura Epps when she’s about to cry.
Homer Fink split us up. It was the first time the class had really been laughing with him and not at him.
Miss Pierce laughed so hard she had to dry the tears from her eyes. Before the class voted, she explained that the oratory contest wasn’t really meant to be a joke-telling contest but that she saw no reason why a good parody wouldn’t make a valid entry.
No one but Homer was sure what “parody” meant. But it didn’t make any difference. For the first time in the history of class 9-1, Phillip Moore was our second choice.
2
All the rest of that day the kids kept telling Homer he was a riot. In history class when Mr. Bean called on him to explain the feudal system, Homer said, “Humor is a derivative of the Latin word humor. Its original meaning was liquid.”
The class started laughing, and nothing Mr. Bean said could quiet them. Just the sight of Homer Fink rising to speak was enough to convulse Brian Spitzer, and Trudy Deal bit a hole right through her handkerchief. Homer finally did explain feudalism. He told us the word came from the Latin feodum or feudum, a fee. “It is important to understand that the most pressing need of the late Roman and early medieval society was protection against attacks by invading tribes or neighbors,” Homer went on. But you could hardly hear him. Mr. Bean finally had to send Brian to the principal’s office and threaten Trudy with detention to make the class settle down.
After school Homer walked me home.
“Hail, Richard,” he called as I started up the street. Homer bounded in front of me, walking backward and swinging his arms. He almost hit Marvin Bloom in the face with his schoolbag, which wouldn’t have been such a good idea because Marvin was big for his age and liked to fight.
“Hi, Homer,” I said. “You were great, but what happened to Demosthenes?”
He smiled, dropped his schoolbag, and clapped his hands. It was a warm fall day and most of the boys were wearing suit jackets or sweaters. Only Homer was wearing an overcoat. His face was flushed and I knew he must be hot, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Got a ball? Let’s catch,” he said to me. “Throw the sphere. Flip the pellet. Chuck the apple.” He cupped his hands and rolled his shoulders and kept moving backward all the time.
I had a rubber ball in my pocket and I threw it to him.
“Strike one,” called Homer. “You are Carl Owen Hubbell born June 22, 1903, Carthage, Missouri, and you have just succeeded in throwing a third strike past Joseph Edward Cronin, born October 21, 1906, San Francisco, California, for the fifth successive strikeout in the All-Star contest, 1934.” Homer never could understand what it was about baseball that got me.
After a long windup he threw the ball back.
“Catchers don’t wind up,” I advised him. “Just cock your arm and throw.”
“Absolutely,” said Homer Fink and he held up a target. “Is this preferable? Throw, Richard, lay on your meteor.”
Homer’s overcoat was dragging and he seemed to have forgotten that he had discarded his schoolbag. He was holding up a target and trying hard to look like a catcher. I knew I’d have to throw fast before he lost his balance.
I let the ball fly and Homer caught it.
“You’re getting better,” I told him. “We’ll make an Oriole out of you yet.”
The Baltimore Orioles were our home team and once my dad had taken Homer with us to a game. Homer had wanted to know what to do. “Root,” my father told him. It was getting a little embarrassing with Homer screaming to the players, “Blast forth beyond the great horizon. For victory. For honor. And Lord Calvert!” My dad finally occupied Homer with a scorecard and Homer Fink spent the afternoon making up a code for recording the game.
I reminded Homer about his bookbag and we had a one-hand catch the rest of the way to my house. It took us about an hour to get home—which is pretty slow considering I live a little more than a mile from school. An Edsel passed us on the street. I had never seen nor heard of an Edsel until Homer told me all about the history of that automobile. He was also in the mood for stepping on leaves and breathing real deep in and out.
“Nothing compares to breathing on a clear fall afternoon to let you know you are alive,” said Homer Fink. I know I’m alive anyway, but that isn’t the kind of thing I would say to Homer unless I were ready for a long speech. And I was thinking we might go to the park and toss around a football.
My mother was in the kitchen. She was feeding my twin brothers who are six months old, and Mom is always feeding them when she’s not rocking them to sleep or washing diapers. I have another brother, Pete, who is two and a half. He was sitting by the sink and opening and closing the door to the pot compartment. Pete would open the door wide and then slam it shut and scream and laugh as if he had just done something great. Pete can hardly talk. It sounded to me as if he were saying, “Me. Door. Me. Door.” The twins were strapped to cradles where they could take their bottles and keep an eye on Pete. They were gurgling and looking at Pete with big open eyes. You just knew they thought he was the greatest.
Homer said, “Greetings, Mrs. Sanders. How fare Romulus and Remus this good day?”
“They’re just fine, Homer. Thriving.” My mother adjusted the bun at the back of her neck. She really flipped when Homer started talking like a character in Shakespeare. I know Mom would have never come up with two names like Romulus and Remus if Homer hadn’t suggested she name them after the founders of Rome. (He had been around when Mom was “in a family way” and it was Homer who first identified my mother as pregnant. “‘Pregnant’ has far more possibilities than ‘being in a family way.’”)
“And what elixir hath thee prepared for us, enchanting lady?” continued Homer.
“Homer, you’re too much,” my mother said. And I could tell right off she was so tickled she would have done most anything to live up to Homer’s expectations. Maybe even opened a bottle of Coke, which we were only allowed to drink on special occasions because of what it does to your teeth.
But milk with honey is what Homer enjoys most, and that’s what we had. Homer drank in great long swallows and there was a big ring about his mouth when he was done.
“Hey, Homer, tide’s out,” I said. It was a signal to let him know he needed a napkin.
Usually Homer didn’t have much to say to the twins. I could never figure out what anybody can say to babies, but Mom claims you have to talk to them or they never learn words. Once when Homer and I were baby-sitting for Pete and the twins and they were giving us a hard time, I followed my mother’s advice. I gave them some words all right. “Vulgate, slang, and profanity,” was the way Homer identified my vocabulary. He was more
interested than my brothers. “What depths of society you have tapped,” said Homer Fink. “What incredible idioms you have encountered.”
A couple of days later Homer had found a book that gave all the meanings. “You shouldn’t address your siblings in such phrases,” he advised me. “It diverts the noble aspirations of the spirit.” But later he went on to tell me a few words that even I hadn’t heard before.
After the milk and honey, Homer and I would be on our way. It was all Pete could do to stand up and say, “Me. Me. Me.” But this was the afternoon of the oratory tryouts and Homer seemed willing to try anything.
Homer dropped to his knees and let Pete sit on his back and started talking to Romy and Remo in Latin. Homer was reciting Caesar’s Gallic War, but from the way the twins split up and Pete was screaming you’d think he was telling them about the original chicken who crossed the street. It was his expression and the way he moved his hands that got to them mostly. There was Homer with his long red hair and freckled face wearing that wool plaid tie he thought was the nuts with his overcoat still on. (He never took it off when visiting because he was sure he would forget it.) He said, “Omnia,” and started wiggling his ears and bouncing Pete on his back. Then he was quiet and when everything was still Homer said, “Gallia.” He went through the same routine. And finally knocked off the whole paragraph to a background of squealing infants and Pete screaming, “Me. Me. Me.”
My mother was as surprised as I was. It wasn’t until Pete finally fell and started screaming that Homer stopped. My mother picked up Pete and hugged him and put a damp cloth to his forehead. Homer was all shook up. There aren’t any babies in his house. He’s an only child, and I guess he thought Pete had a brain tumor and wouldn’t grow up normally because of him. When Homer is scared he bobs off the balls of his feet, beats his chest, and pulls his hair. I kept telling Homer it was all right. Pete fell at least once an hour and usually all he needed was a little hugging and loving to feel better again. Pete was more scared than hurt.